With what little has been written on the worker's condition, in general, it is almost impossible to find works that deal specifically with the lot of textile workers. The introductory text was based on verbal accounts and on the work entitled Les Travailleurs du coton au QuÄbec - 1900-1915 (cotton workers in Quebec - 1900-1915) published by Les Presses de l'UniversitÄ du QuÄbec in 1974.
A description of the conditions of cotton workers during the twenties and thirties can be found in The Report of the Royal Commission on the Textile Industry (Turgeon Commission) Ottawa, King's Printer, 1938, 318 p. On the occasion of Valleyfield's centennial, Claude LariviÅre published Histoire des travailleurs de Beauharnois et Valleyfield (a history of the workers of Beauharnois and Valleyfield) MontrÄal, Editions Albert Saint-Martin, 1974, 44 p, a work that deals with the exploitation of these workers.
For more general works dealing with workers, we suggest: Jean Hamelin (editor), Les Travailleurs quÄbÄcois 1851-96 workers of QuÄbec, 1851-96 MontrÄal, Presses de l'UniversitÄ du QuÄbec, 1973; one chapter deals specifically with working conditions during the nineteenth century. Greg Kealey, Canada Investigates Industrialism, University of Toronto Press, 1973; a selection of statements taken from testimony given before the Royal Commission on Capital and Labour (1887-88) may be a very useful tool for students.
On a similar subject, Michael S. Cross has put together a collection of texts from the period in his book The Workingman in the Nineteenth Century, Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1974. Though written in 1897, Herbert Brown Ames' study, The City Below the Hill, University of Toronto Press, 1972 is still of interest because of the author's scientific approach to the subject. At about the same time Ames was carrying out his work, S.A. Lortie was undertaking a sociological study on the working conditions of a printer in QuÄbec City; his study appears in Pierre Savard's Paysans et ouvriers quÄbÄcois d'autrefois, QuÄbec City, Presses de l'UniversitÄ Laval, 1968.
For a comparative look at women labourers, students might refer to Women at work, Ontario 1850-1930, Janice Acton et al, eds. Toronto, Women's Press, 1974. We should also mention the successful work by Terence Copp on the conditions of MontrÄal workers in the early twentieth century, The Anatomy of Poverty Toronto, McClelland and Stewart, 1974.
